Gartner BPM summit day 1 in review

I know, I should have posted all this yesterday, but I didn’t realize that there was wifi at the conference until late in the day so left my laptop at the hotel, and Movable Type doesn’t allow me to blog by email from my Blackberry. Today, however, I have my trusty tablet in hand and hope to blog throughout the day when I get a chance. I’ll post all these entries under the category Gartner BPM so that you can more easily find them by clicking on the category in the right sidebar.

Some great sessions at the conference, although I think that it would be greatly improved by opening up the speaking slots a bit. Right now, it’s mostly Gartner analysts, a few select Gartner customers, a few vendors (who apparently pay for the privilege so it’s really just an extension of their booth marketing presence), and a few odd selections such as the keynote by Mikel Harry of the Six Sigma Management Institute (probably a good management consultant but not an inspiring speaker) that I just left early. Gartner has sufficient pull to be able to do a limited call for papers that would result in some really excellent presentations to complement their own analysts’ views without diluting the value of the conference. Maybe another year.

A key theme that I’ve heard in a couple of talks: agility (the ability to react to unexpected change) is becoming as, or more, important than innovation: you don’t need to define and implement everything up front if you have confidence in your ability to react to change. The way that I interpret that is that reacting to market forces is the new innovation. Think about it.

I’ll summarize some of the more interesting sessions in separate posts following this, but suffice it to say that my favourites yesterday were Simon Hayward who delivered the keynote “Living in a Process-Centric World”, Janelle Hill with “Leveraging Existing IT Assets in BPM Initiatives”, and a short but very dynamic presentation by Patrick Morrissey from Savvion on “The Seven Deadly Sins of BPM”.

Today, I’m looking forward to this afternoon’s session by Jim Sinur on “When Will the Power Vendors Offer Credible BPM Solutions?”, which promises:

The power vendors have been lagging behind some of the more technically advanced and assertive BPM vendors, but recently each has made moves on the right direction. We expect the “Giants” to try to out stride some of the more advanced and nimble BPMS players in the long run and become a viable options for more than those who buy in a “best of brand” fashion. This session will outline the progress to date of the power vendors, the expected time lines, and where the best-of-breed vendors will try to widen the gap.

Where are the power vendors in relationship with more advanced BPMS players?